Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Alabaster Amphora – An Egyptian AdventurePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Liddle

Setting: The Nile, 1958Product: Outline
What You Get: Sixteen page, 1.08 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Death on the Nile meets Without a Clue meets The MummyPlot Hook: A murder puts the Investigators in the framePlot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, and two Mythos entitiesProduction Values: Plain
Pros# Pulp horror, murder mystery# When the detective dies, someone has to step into his shoes# Detailed outline ready for the Keeper to develop
# Krokodeilophobia# Elaiophobia# Thanatophobia
Cons# Needs an edit
# Detailed outline that the Keeper will need to develop# No NPC stats
Conclusion# Death of a detective up the Nile and into horror!# Detailed outline that needs development and some NPC stats

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that  Dungeons & Dragons  was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game,  Wizards of the Coast, released the new version,  Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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In 1984 and 1985, the breakout comic was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, written and drawn by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and published by their Mirage Studios. It was an independent black and white comic that told the adventures of the eponymous quartet of four genetically-mutated turtles trained under a pet rat, Master Splinter, to fight rival ninja, including the Foot Clan, and other threats, including aliens. Combining humour and stories with a darker edge that Marvel Comics such as Daredevil and The New Mutants, the comic book was a hit and not only continued to be published by Mirage Studios for the next thirty years, but was heavily licensed, pushing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mainstream. Since 1987, there have been five television series based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and eight films. However, in the forty years since the first issue of the comic, there has only been one roleplaying game—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness was published in 1985 by Palladium Games, a company best known at that point for 1983’s Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game and 1984’s Heroes Unlimited. It was designed—or rather redesigned in a matter of weeks after Palladium Games was unhappy with the original submitted version—by Erick Wujcik, who most notably would go on to create Amber Diceless Role-Playing. The result was a fast-paced, engaging, if imperfect roleplaying game packed with art from Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, that looked like it was a lot of fun. And if you were a teenager when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness was released, it was, because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was and were cool. Perhaps because of the speed in which it was rewritten, perhaps because it is a Palladium Games book, there is ‘cookie cutter’ feel to some parts of the roleplaying game—the alignment system, the equipment list, and the weapons—which all very feel imported from Palladium Games’ other roleplaying games that used the  Megaversal system, like the earlier Ninjas & Superspies. There are certainly some parallels between the two, not least of which are the fact that they were both written by Erick Wujcik, but they do not feel like a natural fit to the comic book universe of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That aside,  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  proved to a be a big hit for Palladium Games, selling very well until the release of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series and the first film, when the toning down of the edginess and darkness of the original material meant that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was no longer cool.

Nevertheless,  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  was cool in 1985. At just one-hundred-and-twelve pages, it does not have a lot of space to waste. It starts by pointing out the animal characters are common to comics, if not roleplaying games, so the roleplaying game is giving players that option.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  is designed as a supplement to Heroes Unlimited, the superhero roleplaying game published by Palladium Games, but can be played as a standalone game as it is complete. It also rationalises why it uses a random character generation system rather than a point buy system, which was then becoming popular, such as with Mayfair Games’ DC Heroes Roleplaying Game, Victory Games’ James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Steve Jackson’s Man to Man: Fantasy Combat from GURPS, the precursor to the full release of the system the next year. What this boils down to is that “Excellent players can role-play ANYTHING…”, the Game Master can create interesting villains as much the players interesting characters, and randomness reflects real life. This is followed by quite description of what a roleplaying game is before leaping straight into character creation.

A character in  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  is defined by eight attributes—Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.), Mental Endurance (M.E.), Mental Affinity (M.A.), Physical Strength (P.S.), Physical Prowess (P.P.), Physical Endurance (P.E.), Physical Beauty (P.B.), and Speed (Spd.). The base attributes range from three to eighteen, with results of sixteen or more granting bonuses, though low rolls do not impose any penalties. A character will also have Hit Points and Structural Damage Capacity or S.D.C., essentially stun points. He has an Animal Type, which be anything from dog, cat, mouse, frog, monkey, cow, pig, chicken, goat, sheep, turkey, wolf, coyote, fox to elk, moose, boar, sparrow, robin, blue jay, eagle, owl, escaped pet bird, lion, tiger, leopard, baboo, camel, and buffalo. All animals found in North America, including those in zoos and safari parks. The list, of course, includes the turtle. He will have a Cause of Mutation, the reason why he is anthropomorphic and intelligent. This can be due to a random mutation or an accident, but will primarily because he was a research project of some kind, either growing up in a researcher’s home or even being deliberately trained as an assassin! This background will determine how many skills he will have and often, how good a combatant he is, and his basic attitude towards humans, the default attitude being one of distrust.

Creating a Player Character in  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  involves fives steps. These are rolling for attributes, animal type, and cause of mutation (this will also determine the organisation that will have created the mutated animal and his degree of education), and then spending ‘Bio-E’ or ‘Biological Energy Points’ to mutate the animal. Each animal type has a pool of ‘Bio-E’ points that a player can spend to make it more anthropomorphic and give it hands that grip like a human, speech like a human, and stance like a human, as well as its own intrinsic animal abilities. For example, the aardvark has tunnelling and digging, and the elephant has a prehensile trunk, advanced hearing, and thick skin. ‘Bio-E’ points also account for size. So, if an animal is small, the player has to spend ‘Bio-E’ points to make it bigger, but is given ‘Bio-E’ points to spend if a bigger animal needs to be smaller. The aim here is to make the Player Characters roughly about the same size and of roughly the same capability. It was a way of balancing wildly different character types, but still left something to be desired. In addition, ‘Bio-E’ points can be spent on psionic powers.

After this the player chooses his character’s skills. These will include a variety of skill programmes, scholastic and physical skills, and secondary skills. From amongst these, a Player Character should definitely select a martial arts package, whether that is Hand-to-Hand Basic, Hand-to-Hand Expert, Hand-to-Hand Expert, Hand-to-Hand Assassin, Hand-to-Hand Martial Arts, or Hand-to-Hand Ninjitsu, since part of the roleplaying game’s title includes the word ‘Ninja’ and it does have an emphasis upon combat. Plus, there is a variety of Weapon Proficiencies for various weapons, many of the melee weapons drawn from Japanese culture and history. There are Modern Weapon Proficiencies too, but these tend to be the province of NPCs rather than Player Characters, in keeping with the source material, though there is nothing to stop a Player Character learning one. Lastly, the player selects an Alignment and purchases equipment. The process is not difficult, but slightly cumbersome. It does allow for players to create a group of similar characters a la the turtles of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Name: Aaron
Level: 1
Alignment: Principled (Good)
Animal Type: Aardvark
Mutation Cause: Rescued and adopted from a private company by a friendly researcher whilst it hunted him. 
Human Features: Full Hands, Full Speech, Full Stance
Natural Weapons: Claws (1d6)
Animal Powers: Digging, Tunnelling
Psionic Powers: Sixth Sense

Intelligence Quotient 12 Mental Affinity 12 Physical Strength 19
Mental Endurance 12 Physical Prowess 16 Physical Endurance 18
Physical Beauty 07 Speed 29
Hit Points: 22
S.D.C.: 32

SCHOLASTIC SKILLS
Mathematics: Basic 82%, Read/Write English 60%, Speaks English 60%

MILITARY/ESPIONAGE SKILLS
Pick Locks 35%, Tracking 35%, Wilderness Survival 45%

PHYSICAL SKILLS
Acrobatics (Sense of Balance 65%, Walk Tightrope 65%, Climb Rope 82%, Climbing 44%, Back Flip 65%), Athletics, Boxing, Prowling 64%, Running

SECONDARY SKILLS
Automotive Mechanics 53%, Cook 65%, Computer Operation 65%, Dance 45%, First Aid 55%, Hand-to-Hand: Martial Arts, Land Navigation 44%, Pilot: Basic – Automobile 80%

COMBAT BONUSES
Two attacks/round, +4 Damage, +1 to Strike, +5 Roll with Punch/Fall, +7 Parry, +11 Dodge, +2 Strike with Body Block/Tackle (1d4), +2 to Save versus Coma, Death, and Toxins

NOTES
Fearless of Heights

Mechanically,  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  uses Palladium Games’ Megaversal system and is in general, quite straightforward. Skills are percentiles and cannot rise above 98%, with bonuses gained high attributes, training in physical skills, and gaining Levels. Otherwise, the emphasis in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  is on combat. Once initiative is determined, usually by a roll of a twenty-sided die, combatants roll to attack and defendants roll parry, dodge, or entangle, and so on. A roll of five or more on a twenty-sided die always hits. If the attack roll is less then defendant’s Armour Rating (either natural body or worn armour), damage is deducted from his S.D.C. only. If the roll is over the defendant’s Armour Rating, damage is deducted from his S.D.C. first and then actual Hit Points. A roll of natural twenty is a critical hit and inflicts double damage. If a defendant is hit, his player or the Game Master if an NPC, can choose to parry, dodge, or entangle the attack. This requires a roll greater than the attack roll. This can be done automatically if parrying, but dodging uses up one of a combatant’s attacks. Bullets and energy blasts can be dodged, but not parried. If the attack is with a blunt weapon or with fists, the player or Game Master can for roll for character or NPC to roll with the punch and if successful half the damage. Hand-to-hand combat allows for a variety of different attacks, including punches, kicks, jump kicks, leaps, throws, and so on, as well as the use of various martial arts weapons. The rules for firearms allow for multiple shots per round, since a round actually lasts fifteen seconds, and also automatic fire. They add some complexity to combat and are likely to slow things down whilst melee and hand-to-hand combat is going to flow back and forth a lot more easily.

For example, Aaron the Aardvark is out on patrol one night when he spots Bill the Burglar attempting to break into a house. Aaron’s player states that the Aardvark is going to sneak up on Bill the Burglar and attempt to knock him out. The Game Master calls for Prowling roll first, but Aaron’s player fails this by rolling 83% rather the 64% needed. Since Aaron has failed, the Game Master rules that since Bill the Burglar was being quiet too, he heard the sound of Araon’s claws clicking on the slabs of path. She calls for an initiative roll. The Game Master rolls 17, but Aaron’s player rolls only a 12. With the initiative, the suddenly shocked and frightened at the sight of a five foot tall aardvark Bill the Burglar reaches into his jacket and pulls out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson Model 59 and opens fire! Bill the Burglar has done time at the range and has the Weapon Proficiency: Handgun, but in his state, he opts to blast Aaron with a burst of shots. This gives him a +1 bonus instead of the +3 for an aimed short. Aaron is wearing a vest which gives him an Armour Rating of 10 and 50 S.D.C. The Game Master rolls 16 and one of the shots from the burst hits Aaron, meaning that the damage will be deducted directly from his own S.D.C. rather than the vest’s. Instead of taking the damage, Aaron’s player opts for him to Dodge the attack. Aaron’s player rolls the die and adds his Dodge bonus of +11. He rolls 16 to get a result of 27, meaning he leaps out of the way. This uses up one of Aaron’s actions. Realising that whatever this creature is that is in front of him, Bill the Burglar realises that just blasting away at it, is not going to work. This time, he takes an aimed shot, which gives him a +3 bonus to hit. This time he rolls a 3 for a total of six, which means that Aaron’s vest has stopped the round. Aaron’s player chooses not to Dodge, but instead pounces on Bill the Burglar with a body tackle. Aaron’s player rolls 19, adds +2 to get a result of 21, which definitely means he hits. Aaron’s player rolls for damage, a four-sided dice, +4 for his damage bonus, and inflicts eight points damage to Bill the Burglar’s S.D.C. that he is not fast enough to avoid. There is an oof from Bill the Burglar as Aaron slams into him!

One aspect of  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  that is decently handled is Experience Points. Player Characters do improve going up Levels, and so increasing their Hit Points, Skills, hand-to-hand combat skills, and Weapon Proficiencies. Experience Points are awarded not just for killing or subduing menaces, but also ideas clever and useful, performing skills, endangering your life to save others, avoiding violence, and good roleplaying. There is a lot in the list that encourages good gaming.

There is a decent equipment list other modern-set roleplaying games from Palladium Games as well as an extensive list of Japanese and Ninjitsu weapons, plus equipment for the latter. The Game Master or player wanting more is recommended to check out Heroes Unlimited or The Palladium Book of Contemporary Weapons. The list does include energy weapons since they appear in the comics. A lot of the equipment is intended for use by the police or in espionage.

In keeping with the relative shortness of  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, the section for the Game Master is also short. It is supported by helpful examples of combat and character creation, and there are some notes on matching the scenario to the capabilities of the Player Characters, creating villains and villainous organisations, and how to use  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  with Heroes Unlimited. The bulk of the Game Master dedicated to five scenarios. They include ‘Caesar’s Weasels’, in which the Player Characters track down a gang that has been looting meat packing plants; ‘The Terror Bears’ in which a gang of mutated bears have using their psionic powers to terrorise and then hide in a neighbourhood; ‘Doctor Feral: The Genius of Bio-Spawn’, which details a highly respected scientist who kidnaps mutant animals to vivisect them; ‘Terror on Rural Route 5’, in which mutant animals have taken a school hostage; and ‘The Leg of the Ninja’ which details a Ninja organisation that could grow into a major threat for the Player Characters. ‘Terror on Rural Route 5’ is intended as an introductory scenario, but to be honest, none of the five are actually full scenarios, but rather, set-ups. None of them are bad per se, but rather that the Game Master will need to develop each of them further. Of the five, ‘The Terror Bears’ is the most memorable, since it introduced the four anti-Care Bears—Pain Bear, Fear Bear, Doom Bear, and Nightmare Bear—that parodied a popular animated series of the day. One thing that all five scenario seeds did was provide the Game Master with good range of sample threats.

Rounding out  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  are the stats and write-ups for characters from the comic. This includes the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, their friend April O’Neil and others, Shredder, the leader of the Foot ninja clan, and the T.C.R.I. (or ‘Techno-Cosmic Research Institute’) aliens, as well as the Sparrow-Eagles, the sample team characters outlined earlier in the book.

Physically,  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  feels a little scruffy around the edges, and not quite up to Palladium Games’ usual neat and tidy standards. That may be due to it being rushed or the artwork that sometimes intrudes into the page. It is engagingly written and what really stands out is the artwork. This is either taken from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic or drawn for the roleplaying game and it really is good, including as it does a couple of short strips, one of which depicts the origins of the turtles. The artwork also gives the book a sense of energy and excitement like you really want to take up your katana and battle ninja in the sewers or aliens on the rooftops of New York. Lastly, it is short—at barely more than one hundred pages—and if not quite as well organised as it could be, its short length makes everything easy to find. It also suffers from none of the bloat or utter lack of organisation that have plagued books from the publisher since, most obviously, Rifts.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  is not perfect. One problem is character generation, which though fun is very far from balanced because it is entirely random. Only very high attributes provide bonuses of any kind, and whilst taking some physical skills will improve them, any Player Character with attributes high enough to provide bonuses is at an advantage. The end results can also vary, so that one character might be a relatively mild manner creature with a college level education or a wild creature with barely any, whilst another is a super-soldier assassin killing machine trained by the military. This in addition to some Player Characters who might look humanoid, others not, and maybe not even able to talk, and given a roleplaying game as heavily focused on combat as  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, the super-soldier assassin killing machine trained by the military is what everyone wanted to play. Another problem is that focus on combat, means that other aspects of the game may suffer such as roleplaying. The advice for creating NPCs is underwritten and the Game Master wanting to create ordinary humans will need to work out how to do that. It is not difficult, but advice would have been useful.

Unfortunately,  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness was not free of controversy. In the first printing of the roleplaying game, it included the option for a Player Character to start play with a form of insanity or gain a random later in play as the result of trauma, for example, demonic possession, near-death experience, or torture. Under the list of insanities, it included a list of sexual deviations, which notably featured paedophilia and homosexuality. The idea here was that one of the effects of the trauma was to compel a Player Character to change his sexual orientation. Another bizarrely, was that the Player Character would want to retrain as a psychiatrist! Even so, at the time, this was a tasteless, even offensive, treatment of sexual orientation, especially as homosexuality had been officially declassified as a mental illness for over a decade in 1975. At first, the offending section was covered up by Palladium Books, but then excised from later printings.

Alignment in  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  is also a potential problem. An Alignment represents a Player Character or NPC’s attitudes and moral principles and can be one of seven options divided into three categories. ‘Principled’ and ‘Scrupulous’ are both ‘Good’; ‘Unprincipled’ and ‘Anarchist’ are ‘Selfish’; and ‘Miscreant’, ‘Aberrant’, and ‘Diabolic’ are ‘Evil’. The problem, specifically, is that of torture. Only the ‘Principled’ character or NPC will never resort to torture, whereas even the ‘Scrupulous’ will, but “Never torture for pleasure, but may use muscle to extract information from criminals or evil characters.”; the ‘Unprincipled’ will “Not use torture unless absolutely necessary.”; and ‘Anarchist’ “Will use torture to extract information. But not likely to do so for pleasure.” The ‘Evil’ Alignments are worse, and this treatment of Alignment was common to all roleplaying games from Palladium Games, but that does not excuse in any way the suggestion that a Player Character should or can use torture.

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Marcus L. Rowland reviewed  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 78 (July 1986). He did not come to any clear conclusion, but said, “Fans of the comic will already know what to expect, other readers will need enlightenment. The heroes are exactly what the title implies: large intelligent turtles, trained in Oriental martial arts, and equipped with a variety of Ninja weaponry. Apart from this central joke, the comics pretend to take themselves very seriously. To reflect this, the style of play is completely deadpan, setting intelligent and deadly animals against a background of urban terrorism, gang warfare, juvenile delinquency and random violence.” A more positive comment was made by Robert Neville in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 83 (November 1986) when he reviewed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures!. He opened the review by saying, “TMNT has been one of the surprise hits of the last year, with multitudes of gamers snapping up copies of the rulebook as fast as importers can freight them over to the UK.”

Scott Dollinger reviewed  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 44 (November/December 1986). He awarded it three-and-a-half stars out of five, said, “What is unusual is that Eastman and Laird have not taken the easy route to fast money and licensed the characters to a combat [sic] that would produce a hastily-made product to cash in on the current popularity of the characters. Instead they have maintained the high quality of the comic by licensing the characters to a smaller but well respected gaming company that takes their time and produces an excellent product. In this case the game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness was created by Palladium Books and the results are fantastic.” He also added that, “…[T]he $9.95 price tag makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness one of the best buys on the market.”

Arcane magazine and editor Paul Pettengale had reason to examine  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  not once, but twice. First in Arcane Issue Twelve (November 1996) in which he made it the subject of the magazine’s regular ‘Retro’ department. He said, “Of the random character generation system and its consequently random results he said, “You can imagine how much potential this had for farcical situations.” whilst of the layout, which he said were badly organised, he added that, “The layout of the rulebook could have been clearer (the martial arts section was together with the skills rather than the combat).” Yet despite this, his conclusion was positive: “…[I]t was a quick and easy game to learn, and the rules for character generation are good ... together with Paranoia, TMNT&OS was one of the most fun, and funny games I have played.”

This was followed in Arcane Issue Fourteen (December 1996) by its inclusion in ‘The 50 favourite RPGs of all time’ based on a reader’s poll at position #36. Arcane’s editor Paul Pettengale commented that, “The rules are badly laid out, but the principles are easy to learn and combat is fluid. So, fine on that score. It’s a superbly fun game to play because of its quirkiness, and the fact that the post-apocalyptic setting has most of California under the ocean. Fantastic fun.”

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  was a big hit upon release. It was the roleplaying game that everyone wanted and just like the comics it was based on, it was cool and it was fun. Tonally though, there are elements of the roleplaying game that are at odds with the comic, even though that comic is grim and gritty and full of cartoon violence. But remove them—and at least Palladium Games removed some of them—and there is still potential for a lot of fun in its pages. If you can get them roughly balanced, then the range of character options based on the eighty animals it includes is huge and the rules are straightforward, if only a little rough. Which to be fair, is an amazing achievement for a roleplaying game designed in five weeks! It is not the greatest roleplaying game or even the best roleplaying game of 1985, but  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness  opened up the world of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to roleplaying and let you roleplay strange mutant animals sneaking around in the shadows, fighting crime, stopping alien invasions from other dimensions, and facing off against ninja. Which was very definitely cool in the eighties, and if you want to whisper it to yourself now, it still is forty years later.

Rogues, thieves, con artists, burglars, pirates, fences, pickpockets, plunders, muggers, thugs, spies, ninja, let alone scouts and rangers. All use guile, deception, and chicanery to achieve their aims in one fashion or another, and they, along with cunning and stealth, are the subject of HARP Subterfuge. As the title suggests, this is a supplement for High Adventure Role Playing Fantasy or HARP Fantasy, the roleplaying game descended from 1980’s Rolemaster. It is designed as the definitive guide to the classic fantasy roleplaying figure, the thief, and just about anyone who might use subterfuge or stealth to achieve his aims. This includes not just the aforementioned thief—and the many variations upon that role—but also those that use such skills as part their role, yet are not thieves or rogues. The classic Ranger is foremost amongst them, but there are several others that use such skills and who are not wanted by the city watch as a consequence of their use. HARP Subterfuge gives new Professions and spells, a guide to creating the perfect thief, advice on using the right skill for the right job, ways in handle stealth and subterfuge goes wrong (and a Player Character winds up in the hands of the law), suggestions on setting up a suitable underworld for any would be thief Player Character, and more. Although it is a supplement for HARP Fantasy, what HARP Subterfuge really does is move away from the ‘high adventure’ of HARP Fantasy and into a legally and morally grey area, inspired as it is Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories as well as The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequels by Scott Lynch. What this means is that its contents may not be suitable for a high fantasy campaign, but if the Game Master wanted to set her campaign on the mean streets of some city decried as a den of iniquity, then HARP Subterfuge would be the supplement to help her do that.

HARP Subterfuge primarily requires HARP Fantasy, being built around its Ranger, Rogue, and Thief Professions, but it also needs HARP Folkways for the Hunter, the Scoundrel, and Seeker. It typecasts these and the new Professions into three categories—physical, dextrous, and intellectual, and suggests not just ways in which to build them, including skills to prioritise and talents are useful, but also why you might play them. These include Assassin, burglar, Con Artist, Fence, Pickpocket, Pirate, Plunderer (or archaeologist), Ruffian, Spy, Ranger, Scout/Guide, and Wayfarer (or explorer). The new Professions are the Ninja, Nightblade, and Beguiler. The Ninja is obvious in what it does, but the Nightblade is a spy that specialises in movement, distraction, disguise, and poison, whilst the Beguiler is spell user that specialises in mental misdirection, manipulation, and deception, particularly the Sphere of Beguilement. This is coupled with the Racial and Cultural perspectives for all of the Races and Cultures given in both HARP Fantasy and HARP Folkways, as well as adding the Dark Warrens Culture. This represents growing up in a culture with a reputation for crime, sin, and evil. Social class is not ignored, though that does require access to HARP Martial Law.
Similarly, there is advice and a review of skills and Talents useful to thieves and rogues, as well as the new skills, Intimidation and Crafts: Trap Making and Setting, and numerous new Talents, including ‘Backstabbing’, ‘Master Negotiator’, Opportunistic Attacking’, and ‘Thieves’ Insight’. It then shows the Game Master how to apply these skills and Talents as Manoeuvres. Under ‘Tricks of the Trade’ it examines everything from stalking, hiding, and camouflage, perception, and pickpocketing to disguises and infiltration, streetwise, and trickery—and it does so in exhaustive detail. For example, for crafting and setting traps, it looks at the possible difficulties crafting and setting traps, trap components, purchasing readymade traps, improvising traps, snares and lures (or non-lethal traps), and even magical traps. It backs this up with examples of play and interestingly, draws parallels between magical traps and chemical warfare in that they can be particularly deadly, and their use can escalate. However, a similar ethical approach is not applied to the discussion on seduction under its otherwise well done treatment of Influence, which covers rumours, propaganda, bribery, blackmail, and reputation. Each of the ‘Tricks of the Trade’ is treated in similar, detailed fashion, as the ‘Tools of the Trade’, which covers climbing, picking locks, making a getaway, and more.
For poisons, HARP Subterfuge does consider their implications and effects upon culture and society. This includes their use as medicines (depending upon dosage), in mysticism and cults to instil trance, euphoric, or hallucinatory states, in hunting and war—the latter typically held as dishonourable, and in general, their use being regarded as taboo. Of course, this is not going stop the Player Characters or NPCs from using poison, so sources of poison are examined, rules for harvesting and cultivating sources, preparing, and using them are all provided. The later includes applying poisons to weapons, adding them to food, or blowing them as a dust. There is a guide too to ‘Mithridatism’, the immunisation against a certain poison through application or ingestion of tiny doses, as well as tables for the Game Master to create poisons for her own campaign.

The point of ‘Deceptive Combat’ in HARP Subterfuge is that it does not involve what more martial types would call a ‘fair’ fight. Instead of meeting on the battlefield, a deceptive combatant uses every advantage he can—attacking first, ambushes, higher ground, knocking opponents down or stunning them, and so on. Scaling these up and what you have is guerrilla warfare, but either allows weaker or poorly equipped individuals or forces to fight the larger or better equipped. HARP Fantasy Professions which fall under this include the Ranger, Rogue, and Thief, as do the Hunter and Seeker from HARP Folkways, whilst HARP Subterfuge most notably adds the Ninja. ‘Deceptive Combat’ examines various ways in which a combatant will fight less than fair, including dodging, parrying, knocking prone and fighting from prone, taunting, flanking, and more. Then when things get ugly, it also looks at dirty fighting and brawling. Of course, much of this can apply to normal combat too, but it particularly applies to the new Profession of Ninja, which is given a chapter of its own covering Ninja tools, weapons, and martial arts.
Since all Professions in HARP Fantasy can have access to magic, HARP Subterfuge explores several paths via which the stealthy or the cunning can add a touch of magic to their arsenal. These scale up from not actually learning to use spells, but to better use the stored magic in charms, potions, and magical items to actually combining a spell-casting Profession with a Subterfuge Profession, with the new spell-casting Professions in HARP Subterfuge of Beguiler and Nightblade somewhere in between. The supplement examines these in turn, also adding lists of spells from other Spheres that will be useful to subterfuge Professions (some of which come from HARP College of Magics). There are useful lists too, of spells granted by their deity, such as a god of trickery or god of secrecy, for the Cleric/Thief Profession combination, and lastly, the ‘Sphere of Shadows’. This is for the Nightblade Profession and includes spells from the Spheres of Necromancy and Elementialism from the HARP College of Magics, as well as new spells particular to the Nightblade, such as Acute Senses, Phantasmal Duplicates, and Nightblade’s Focus, the latter enabling the Nightblade to enter into a trance state with his weapon to enhance his skill.
The last part of HARP Subterfuge looks at subterfuge and society. This includes its criminal elements or underworld, described here more as an overlay (or as it alternatively suggests, an ‘underlay’) which may or may not dominate a bad part of town. The Streetwise skill is what needs to know in order to get around either and who he might know such as informants, fixers, and fences, plus of course, who is in charge at any one time and who wants to be. This includes organisations too, from the classic fantasy thieves’ guild and rural to heist teams and spy agencies. Amongst these are nomadic groups, suggesting that not all members of a nomadic group engage in subterfuge and gypsies as an example. This is problematic as it veers towards stereotyping, and whilst ultimately that may come down to their portrayal by the Game Master, this could have been addressed in the book. ‘Robin Hood and his Merry Men’ are given as example of a rural organisation, complete with gaol and purpose, membership requirements, group structure, means and methods, which is a pleasing counterpart to the more generic treatment of a thieves’ guild that follows. It is more structured though, as you would expect in a classic fantasy roleplaying sense, and it provides a template that the Game Master can use or adjust as is her wont. There are sections too on loot that a thief might steal, the amount or type depending upon the wealth of the society he is preying on. It includes some new magical items like the Dagger of Silent Screams that five times a day dulls all sound with a foot, including screams and the Gloves of Finnius ‘Four-Thumbs’ (a nice gaming reference there) which an extra thumb, taken from the dead body of a master thief, sown into a finger outside the little finger! The gloves need time to adjust to, but give a bonus to pickpocketing and picking locks, but reducing the wearer’s chance of fumbling in combat!

Of course, the downside to carrying out acts of subterfuge is that a Player Character can get caught. HARP Subterfuge does not simply look at the ways in which a thief might be caught, treated by the legal system—if any, and if found guilty, punished, it asks what constitutes a crime taking into consideration a society’s norms, customs, and laws, and how that can affect a Player Character. It looks at these from point of view of the different Races from both HARP Fantasy and HARP Folkways, as well as what each generally thinks of capital punishment (important, because historically in the medieval-style cultures that fantasy roleplaying games are based, capital punishment was the punishment de jour). Although there is a decision tree that the Game Master can follow to make a quick and dirty ruling—based on the offender’s relation to a group, the justice he faces, the offender’s criminal history, object of the crime and the means, and more—there is no one size fits all system here and ultimately, the Game Master will need to design a justice system to fit her campaign, and possibly more than one, if the campaign focuses on thievery and subterfuge. In response to thieves, there are some suggestions as to possible countermeasures that the law-abiding and/or the rich can take to prevent the theft of their valuables.

Penultimately, and surprisingly, HARP Subterfuge steps away from the mechanics of playing a Thief or subterfuge-type character to look at the ethics—the principles behind right and wrong behaviour, and the morals—the attitude and behaviour of the individual. Backed up by examples, this examines how some actions and outlooks of certain Player Character types can be perceived as negative and ultimately affect both the other players and the other characters. This stems from that the fact that the character type in HARP Subterfuge is stealing or being underhanded, which in today’s society is regarded as immoral in the first case and at least frowned upon in the second. After all, the character type that is likely to be the most selfish is the Thief and if that extends to theft from the rest of the party, that can have consequences in and out of the game. Really, what the section is doing is suggesting that the Game Master and her players consider the personal versus group dynamics of the party and set boundaries in terms of what their characters will and will not do. Of course, not every group of players is going to want to address this or even feel the need to do so, but it is there if they do. Certainly, for some groups, it is definitely something to think about.
Lastly, HARP Subterfuge includes an appendix that outlines the long con, which like earlier chapters, looks at different applicable Professions and skills and Talents, how the different Races and Cultures regard them, how to handle the Manoeuvres necessary to carry one off, all the way down to the ethics and morals involved. This is a great addition to the rest of the book, since it sets up the possibility of a mini-campaign focused on a single job in which the Player Characters prey upon the trust and/or greed of others, but emphasising verbal interaction as much as physical action, if not more.

Physically, HARP Subterfuge is neat and tidy. The artwork varies in quality, and in the main, this is a text-heavy book with a lot of detail. This does not mean that it is hard to read by any means. Notably, each chapter is headed by a suitable quote and their sources are listed at the front, so the reader can use them as a bibliography.
How much use a playing group will get out of HARP Subterfuge will depend upon how much it focuses on the activities of the Thief Profession and other subterfuge-based Player Characters. There is content here that will always be of use to the Thief of the classic fantasy roleplaying, whether that is the ‘Backstabbing’ Talent or the use of various Manoeuvres like climbing, laying traps, and picking locks, all of which are described in detailed fashion. Beyond this, there is plenty here that will really benefit a Thief- or subterfuge-focused campaign, perhaps providing almost too much for the Game Master to work through and take into consideration when setting up such a campaign. Ultimately, HARP Subterfuge is the definitively exhaustive sourcebook for thieves and other ne’er-do-wells for HARP Fantasy, with plenty of ways to add variations upon the classic thief- or rogue-type character to an ongoing campaign or focus upon them for the entirety of the campaign.

From the outset, Jude’s World faces a challenge in terms of the audience it will not appeal to. Not because it is a bad game, but rather because of its subject matter. It is a solo storytelling and journalling game, and over the two decades that the hobby has had storytelling games, they have generally dealt with generally non-commercial subject matters in a fairly direct manner. These have included love, betrayal, survival, community, mysteries, loyalty, magic, and many more. Jude’s World though, deals with divorce. And for a sizeable percentage of the gaming community—as in society, in general—that may be too sensitive a subject matter, especially one to turn into a game. And that is whether they were a child whose parents separated and divorced or an adult who has a child and goes through a divorce with a partner. For others though, Jude’s World may be as fantastical a concept as going down a dungeon and fighting monsters. More interestingly though, Jude’s World has also been written in response to the Walt Disney film, The Parent Trap, both the original 1961 version and the 1998 remake, which the author describes as being a very conservative view of marriage and relationships. This in addition to the quite bonkers nature of the films’ plot (and the German book it is based upon, Lisa and Lottie, by Erich Kästner).

Jude’s World is published by Button Kin Games, best known for its collaboration with the excellent Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I and it requires nothing more than a means to record the player’s progress, two six-sided dice, and a deck of Tarot cards. In Jude’s World, the player takes the role of twelve-year-old Jude, writing a diary about the breakdown of the marriage of their parents, Mika and Jamie, and then their effort to get them back together again. Essentially, just like The Parent Trap, but without a twin. Of course, a player need not roleplay Jude and need not set their efforts in the default period of the here and now for Jude’s World. The player is free to assign whatever names he wants and set his playthrough where and whenever he wants.

Jude and their parents are very lightly defined. In fact, it comes down to the single sentence, ‘Jude is XXX, who XXX’, where the ‘XXX’s are defined by the player’s initials and those of his favourite teenage icons. So, for example, mine would be ‘Jude is a philosopher, who loves movie nights’, whilst those for Jude’s parents would be ‘Mika is social butterfly, who speaks multiple languages’ and ‘Jamis is a goody two shoes, who wants to go to space’. Besides this, Jude has a stat called ‘Teen’ which measures their progress from pre-teen to teen and rated from zero to five, beginning at zero. Their parents have ‘Hearts’ and ‘Hurts’. ‘Hearts’ runs from one to five and starts at one, and represents the love that Mika and Jamie had for each other. ‘Hurts’ runs between one and three, starts at two, and represents the pain they have caused each other. If it rises to three, Mika and Jamie have a fight and lose two Hearts! Ultimately, the aim of Jude’s World is for Jude to get her parents back together, indicated by increasing their parents’ ‘Hearts’ to five, whilst increasing their ‘Teen’ value represents their increasing maturity.

Set-up begins by having Jude ‘Build a Life’. This is done by creating a nine-card Tarot spread, roughly shaped like a house, that indicate what Jude and Mika care about apart from Jude, how they met and what drew them together, obstacles they overcame and what they sacrificed to have Jude, a personality trait for Jude, what Jude’s happiest memory of their family is, and what they know about their parents’ break up. This represents the past for Jude, whilst her future is defined by having her ‘Rebuild a Life’ using the same nine-card Tarot spread.

As he draws the Tarot cards, the player will interpret and use them to tell the story of Jude’s efforts to get their parents back together. The Minor Arcana consist of Pentacles representing wealth and work; Cups emotions, health, family, and friends; Swords are intellect and school; and Wands are creativity and hobbies. The Major Arcana, such as Death, The Sun, and Justice represent major milestones. ‘The Fool’, ‘The Magician’, and ‘The High Priestess’ form the Twists stack, whilst three Minor Arcana form Jude’s Keepsakes stack. It is not a matter of drawing a single card each time, since that would produce a build which could be interpreted as a story, but which was wholly random. Instead, the player draws three cards on a turn. One he keeps, the others he returns randomly to the deck. The drawn cards represent different aspects of Jude’s life and that of their parents. Numbered Minor Arcana are Keepsakes, such as ‘A picture of an old house’ or ‘A teddy bear holding a stuffed heart’, that their parents once held dear and which Jude uses to strengthen the emotional effect of the Traps they will lay for them. Face Minor Arcana are a foil or an accomplice, part of Jude’s life, such as a popular and ambitious older teen for ‘Knight of Cups’ or an authoritative, determined adult for the ‘King of Swords’. An accomplice will help Jude get their parents back together, whilst a foil will not. Major Arcana are Twists, big events in Jude’s life, such as standing up to a bully for ‘The Chariot’ or running away for the night for ‘The Fool’. Effectively, these are all prompts and all handily listed in Jude’s World, which the player is using to tell and then record Jude’s efforts.

There are twin drives to Jude’s World and the key them are the Twists, which can either be picked or used to ‘Spring a Trap’. Picking a Twist, a big event in Jude’s life, increases their Teen score and their maturity, whereas a Twist is used along with three Keepsakes to ‘Spring a Trap’. The player uses a Twist and three Keepsakes to trigger a Trap and then rolls for the results on the table. An Accomplice or a Foil add a bonus or penalty to the roll if present. Results vary widely. A ‘Failure’ increases Hurt by one. A ‘Partial Success’ gives three options—adding a Heart and changing an Accomplice to a Foil; increase Heart and Hurt by one each; or reduce Hurt by one. A ‘Full Success’ increases Heart by one. An ‘Outstanding Success’ also increases Heart by one and adds further options of turning a Foil into an Accomplice, Reducing Hurt to zero, or increasing Heart by one again. The three Keepsakes are discarded, as is the Major Arcana used for the Twist if the result was a failure. On any degree of success—Partial, Full, or Outstanding— the Major Arcana is added to the ‘Rebuild a Life’ spread.

Mechanically, the flow and aim of the game is to build up enough Minor Arcana as Keepsakes and one or more Major Arcana as Twists to set a Trap for Jude’s parents to make them remember what was good about their relationship and why they got together in the first place, and to try get them back together again. The player will do this multiple times, working to fill in the nine-card ‘Rebuild-a-Life’ spread. Thematically, the player is recording the story of how this happens and what the outcome is, as well as making discoveries about Jude’s parents using the cards of the Tarot deck together with the prompts listed in the book.

Also thematically, the player is exploring his past. Primarily, his memories of being both a pre-teen and a teenager, but also the breakup of his parents’ relationship and his reaction to that—if that happened. There is a degree of intimacy to both, meaning that the play of Jude’s World is potentially more personal and even more painful than other roleplaying games, even storytelling ones. Plus, that intimacy can be exacerbated because Jude’s World is played alone and the player is not just drawing upon personal thoughts and recollections, but considering them and writing them down. Of course, a player need not draw on his past so heavily or even at all, perhaps playing Jude’s World inspired more directly by the tone of The Parent Trap than is Jude’s World itself. That said, the potential remains. Of course, as the author points out, Jude’s World is not intended and should not be used as therapy.

Physically, Jude’s World is a decently presented book. The cover is striking, but whilst decent enough, the internal artwork is more functional. The layout of the book as a notebook with coloured tabs down the side is appropriately effective.

Jude’s World is a well designed and thought out game that showcases the types of stories that possible within the storytelling genre. This is a coming-of-age story, one of the trauma of family break-up, but also an attempt to repair that trauma and put the family back together. It also offers flexibility in how a player approaches its play and replayability in the use of the Tarot deck and the prompts in the book. However, its degree of intimacy and the feelings and memories it can engender make it less of a comedy, coming-of-age drama for some players than the author intended.

War has come to the plains of Barrowdown again and again. The farmers would sow their crops every spring only for the barons and their armies to clash in the fields and cut down the wheat and the barley by the end of summer, the fields wet with blood rather than rain. Come the autumn and the winter, there have been years when the only way for farmers to survive is to harvest the corpses left in the armies’ wake, stripping them of their arms and armour and selling them to would be adventurers and mercenaries. Yet years and years of battles have sown the ground with rusted weapons and old bones and no field can be ploughed without churning over the dead and the detritus of war and forgotten conflicts. The locals had long learned to adapt to the fights and their consequences that were far above their status, but they were ill-prepared to face a danger that burrowed up out of the blood-drenched earth and the long past—War-Worms! In the very long past, the world was ruled by mammoth war-worms to which man made blood sacrifices, but that time has long since passed and is now forgotten. Only for the wizard, Solom Quor, to discover one of these War-Worms on the battlefields near Barrowdown and answer its call. Now he worships the War-Worm as the Mother of Worms, both twisted mentally and physically by his adoration, and directs freshly bred War-Worms upon the peasantry of the plains! Now, in the dead of night, the War-Worms burrow up out of the earth and feed upon the blood of peasants as they sleep, leaving the victims drained and worse, ready to rise in the morning as undead hosts large worms with the faces of tormented men!

This is the set-up to Dungeon Crawl Classics #76.5: Well of the Worm, a scenario published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It is designed for a party of four to six First Level Player Characters and has both a quick set-up time and a quick playing time. It can easily be played in a single session and prepared in less than hour. That set-up also makes it easy to add to a campaign, the Judge only needing to locate the warring baronies in her setting and have that somewhere where the Player Characters might be passing through. The scenario itself was a special print release for Gen Con 2013, but even then, it was not new. This is because it is based on an earlier scenario that appeared in the pages of Dungeon Crawl Classics #29: The Adventure Begins, the anthology of First Level adventures published in 2006 by Goodman Games for use with Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5. Here it has been updated for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and whilst it is designed for First Level Player Characters, it could also be run as ‘Character Funnel’, the classic feature for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Zero Level characters and have them play through a nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class.

The scenario provides three hooks to get the Player Characters involved as well, but it starts at the village well from which the local wise woman says that the War-Worms are emerging from underground. From the start, the adventure is claustrophobic and has an unnaturally sticky, mucus encrusted feel to it, confirmed as the Player Characters climb down the well and War-Worms burrow out of the walls and drop onto the climbers below. It leads to a creepy uncertainty about the environment the Player Characters are in and the fear that anything might explode out of the walls at them at any moment. It has the feel of, and is obviously inspired by the film Aliens, which is further confirmed when the Player Characters discover corpses of some of the villagers trapped in the walls by congealed mucus and incubated into War-Worm Zombies! (The first of the scenario’s two handouts depict this horrid discovery.)

There are some other entertaining encounters too, such as worm pits with War-Worm Zombies on the catwalks above, stirring the great vats of worms, who upon seeing the Player Characters will attempt to knock them into the pits! A stockade holding villagers gone mad during their imprisonment and having turned feral, will take their fury out on the Player Characters. Then there is the War-Worm Ogre Zombie right at the end, a failed, stitched-together experiment by Solom Quor that has left it blind, legless, and enraged. As a consequence, it is slow, only able to crawl about and lash out wildly in a random direction. A Warrior or a Dwarf with a slashing weapon can target the thing’s stitches with a Mighty Deed to inflight extra damage. It is a pleasingly different end of scenario boss fight style encounter.

Although small, there is a pleasing sense of verticality to Dungeon Crawl Classics #76.5: Well of the Worm and some surprising variety to the eight locations it is comprises, even though all are covered in slime and crusty with dried ooze. It also has a great atmosphere for such a short dungeon, but its length means that there is little room for more than straightforward exploration and a lot of combat. There is no real opportunity to roleplay in the scenario and no-one to roleplay with, since Solom Quor is not interested in talking. Plus, the Player Characters never really get to interact with the great background of regularly warring baronies.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #76.5: Well of the Worm is decently presented. The writing is good, the artwork is decent, and the handouts are better. The map is great, imparting much of the scenario’s atmosphere.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #76.5: Well of the Worm leans into the pulp horror of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, lending it a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere that everyone is going to be familiar with. It is a solid filler dungeon, easy to prepare, and heavy on combat, so easy to run in a single session.

On the edge of civilisation lies Lake Onda, pregnant with rain, its waters ready to break. Already, they gulp at its banks, choking the earth and saturating the trees and the plants and subsuming them into a mire that spreads and spreads. The inhabitants of the surrounding villagers eke out what life they can, drowning from the moment they were born on the hot, moist air, never knowing the comfort of a respite from the rot and the stench. The lucky few escapes to a life of poverty elsewhere, free of their sodden origins. The unlucky few falls prey to a coalescence of mouldering vegetation and undergrowth into a brain sparked into life by the violent storms that wrack the skies above the lake, its only feeling being one of hunger. The villagers only know it to be something foul and want it ended. King Fathmu’s royal biologist wants a cutting from the creature for his gardens. Some have had visions of a nascent godling born in the swamps and know they would be well rewarded were they to nurture and protect it to its intended status. There is said to be a temple in the swamp with an entrance to the underworld where great riches lie ready for the taking. The right flowers of the swamp can be harvested for useful remedies.

This is the set-up for The Thing from the Swamp. Published by Loot the Room, this is a scenario for Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. The scenario focuses not on the swamp, but on the remains of a building that has slumped into the swamp and what lies underneath its cracked roof. This is a complex of rooms dedicated to researching and testing the creature that lives in the fetid caves beyond, that with the building’s collapse have succumbed to the stagnant waters of the swamp, the walls pierced with tough roots and dripping slime and mould, the air thick with spores ready to infest the lungs.
The remnants of the research and experimentation can be found throughout the complex, but they are not the only things to be found in the waterlogged ruins. There are riches to be recovered—but this is a scenario for Mörk Borg, so not very much, and the fabled flowers to be harvested, but there are also signs of Frankenstein-like experiments too and encounters with various parties with an interest in the creature, perhaps to capture it, perhaps to kill it, and there is also a worshipper of the creature, bidden to tend unto godhood. Most of these will be encountered at random. Perhaps the strangest thing that the Player Characters will find is ‘The Walker’, a mobile mecha suit powered by a human heart, which could be used to attack the creature, but is almost as dangerous to operator as it is to anyone it attacks.
As atmospheric as The Thing from the Swamp is, it is poorly set up. Like other scenarios for the Old School Renaissance, it is designed for emergent play, but it suffers from emergent comprehension too. In other words, the elements of the story that can come into play as the Player Characters explore the complex, also emerge as the Game Master reads the scenario. This is poor design that hinders the Game Master’s preparation efforts. The Game Master should have been given this information upfront as a necessity. However, the technological elements of the scenario, including the obvious signs of pseudo-scientific research being conducted in the complex and ‘The Walker’, make the scenario far more flexible than one would think. Of course, it is easy to plonk almost anywhere remote on the island of Tveland, the default setting for Mörk Borg, but with adjustments, The Thing from the Swamp could work just as well with CY_BORG or Pirate Borg.
Physically, The Thing from the Swamp is well presented. There are some nice touches away from the scenario such as its content warnings being presented as The British Board of Film Classification film classifications from the 1970s. Away from this, the layout is clean and tidy with the map presented on each two-spread marked with the locations being described. It is light on artwork, but the descriptions make up for that. It does need an edit though.
The Thing from the Swamp is an atmospherically soggy dungeon whose secrets will emerge as the Player Characters explore, though they should have been signposted earlier for the Game Master. It otherwise is a classic self-contained dungeon for Mörk Borg, easy to add to a campaign or run on its own.

 I have been spending a lot of time going back to my roots and re-evaluating and even re-writing things I have done in the past. Case in point, my first real release, The Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks.

First "published" in 1999, I remember sitting in the hospital room after my first child was born and clicking on the button to "FTP" to my website. That was 26 years ago.

Re-reading through it now, there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but they all made sense to me at the time. But that doesn't mean I can't play a little "What If?"

One of the things I really liked about my AD&D 2nd Edition witch was that it was a Cleric subclass. I always liked clerics and played a lot of them (despite being an atheist in real life and at least one person calling me I am a pagan). AD&D 2nd ed provided me the framework in which to explore my witch ideas as a "Priest of Specific Mythoi."

These days, I am pretty set on witches being a Charisma-based caster, but that doesn't mean I can't still play around with these ideas. 

I have no intention on re-publishing the CNoW&W; it exists as a moment in time both to what I wanted at the time AND what the DIY D&D movements were doing back then. 

I can, however, share new ideas here.

THE WICCE

The wicce is a sub-class of the cleric, devoted not to a singular deity but to the Old Religion: an ancient, earth-centered faith that honors the divine as immanent in nature, the turning of the seasons, and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Wicce are priestesses (and priests) of balance, healing, fertility, and mystery.

Rooted in the remnants of ancient cults, the Wicce uphold sacred rites passed down in secret circles and moonlit groves. Their power flows not from divine commandment but from attunement to the cosmic rhythms, the lunar phases, the wheel of the year, and the spiral dance of creation.

Wicce are communal and nurturing, often found tending sacred springs, offering blessings, leading seasonal festivals, or guiding others through spiritual transformation. Though often misjudged as eccentric or harmless, the Wicce are fierce defenders of harmony, life, and the sacred divine aspects of all life.

Like druids, Wicce are nature-connected, but their magic is symbolic, intuitive, and ritualized. Unlike clerics, they serve no formal church but gather in circles, groves, or sky-thatched temples.

Photo by Marina UtraboRequirements: Wisdom 13+, Charisma 11+

Prime Requisite: Wisdom

Hit Dice: d6

Armor Allowed: Any non-metal (leather, hide, padded, wooden shields)

Weapons Allowed: Staff, dagger, sickle, sling, club, spear, crescent blade

Alignment: Typically any non-evil

Spell Use: Divine and Occult (custom spell list, see below)

Special Abilities

Moon-Blessed Magicks: The Wicce may perform circle magick tied to the lunar calendar. When casting beneath the full moon or during seasonal festivals, any healing or protective spell gains +1 per die of healing or +1 to saving throw modifiers. (Modified per the GM’s world)

Shared Ritual Craft (2nd Level):  Beginning at 2nd level, the Wicce (or Magus) may participate in a ritual casting alongside a witch (of any Tradition) as if they were a witch of the same level. This applies only when performing Occult Rituals that require multiple casters.

The Wicce/Magus must meet all material and ceremonial requirements and must be aligned in intent with the witch leading the ritual. In all such workings, the Wicce or Magus contributes fully to the spell's power, as if they were a witch of equal experience level.

This ability does not grant the ability to lead witch rituals or cast witch-only spells unaided, but reflects the shared cosmology and deep resonance between these occult paths.

Sacred Circle (3rd Level): Once per day per 3 levels (3rd, 6th, 9th…), the Wicce may consecrate a space with herbs, salt, and chant. This functions as a Protection from Evil (10' radius) and grants +2 on saving throws vs. possession and charm for allies within. Takes 1 turn to cast.

Blessed Be: The Wicce may offer a benediction to any creature once per day. This acts as a Bless spell (single target) but also grants +1 to Wisdom checks or saving throws vs. fear and despair for 1 turn.

Coven Bond: Wicce gain +1 to all saving throws when within 30 feet of another Wicce, Druid, Witch, or Cleric of aligned faith. This effect stacks up to +3.

Wicce may use all clerical magic items, unless tied to a particular faith, and some witch (occult) magical items. They do not worship a deity in the traditional sense, but honor the Goddess and God, the Triple Moon Goddess, or Nature Herself. Their spells are granted through alignment with the sacred cycles and the ancestral wisdom of the Old Ways.

Wicce do not build churches, but found groves, stone circles, mystic retreats, or earth temples. These sites often become places of pilgrimage for the disenchanted or spiritually seeking.

Though often dismissed as flower-wearing mystics, the Wicce represent a potent force for healing, guidance, and resistance against spiritual decay. They greet friend and stranger alike with warm smiles, words of blessing, and quiet power.

9th Level

Upon reaching 9th level, a Wicce becomes a High Priestess (or High Priest) and may establish a Circle, Grove, or Sacred Temple of the Old Ways. This site may be a stone circle, secluded glade, hilltop shrine, or ritual sanctuary aligned to lunar phases or natural ley lines. It must be consecrated by sacred rites and protected from profanation.

Once the Circle is founded, the Wicce will attract 2d6 1st-level Wicce initiates within 1d6 months. These are not servants or soldiers, but spiritual students and co-celebrants who come seeking guidance, initiation, and training in the mysteries of the Old Religion. These initiates are loyal, but not blindly obedient; they are part of the Wicce’s extended spiritual family.

In addition to initiates, the Wicce may also draw:

• Healers, herbalists, and wise folk
• Fey-blooded or nature-touched seekers
• Occult scholars, druids, or Witches of compatible Traditions
• Pilgrims or supplicants in search of spiritual insight, healing, or blessings

The Circle functions as both a spiritual retreat and a center of influence, granting the Wicce status in the hidden pagan networks of the world. It may even attract attention, welcoming or hostile, from organized religions, nobles, or inquisitors.

A Circle may hold sabbats and esbats, sanctify marriages and births, banish malevolent spirits, and maintain harmony with nature spirits or the local fae. The DM may treat the Circle as a minor religious stronghold, but it does not generate income like a clerical temple unless ritual services are offered to the surrounding community.

Wicce XP Progression Table

Level Title Experience Points Hit Dice
(d6) Spell Level Access 1 Initiate of the Circle 0 1 1st 2 Seeker of the Spiral 1,750 2 1st 3 Blessed Sister/Brother 3,750 3 2nd 4 Priest/Priestess of Light 7,500 4 2nd 5 Guardian of the Grove 15,000 5 3rd 6 Weaver of Fates 30,000 6 3rd 7 Voice of the Goddess 60,000 7 4th 8 Spiral Elder 110,000 8 5th 9 High Priest/Priestess 180,000 9 6th 10 High Priest/Priestess 260,000 9+1 6th 11 High Priest/Priestess 380,000 9+2 7th + High Priest/Priestess +120,000 +1

--

1st-Level Spells

• Bless (PHB)
• Command (PHB)
• Cure Light Wounds (PHB)
• Detect Evil (PHB)
• Faerie Fire (UA)
• Invisibility to Undead (UA)
• Light (PHB)
• Purify Food & Drink (PHB)
• Remove Fear (PHB)

2nd-Level Spells

• Augury (PHB)
• Chant (PHB)
• Barkskin (UA) 
• Cure Moderate Wounds (UA)
• Resist Fire (PHB)
• Slow Poison (PHB)
• Speak with Animals (PHB)
• Spiritual (Hammer) weapon (PHB) reflavored as moon-blessed weapon

3rd-Level Spells

• Create Food and Water (PHB) 
• Cure Disease (PHB) 
• Dispel Magic (PHB)
• Locate Object (PHB) 
• Meld into Stone (PHB) 
• Prayer (PHB) 
• Protection from Fire (PHB) 
• Remove Curse (PHB) 

4th-Level Spells

• Cure Serious Wounds (PHB) 
• Divination (PHB) 
• Lower Water (PHB) 
• Neutralize Poison (PHB) 
• Protection from Evil, 10' Radius (PHB) 
• Speak with Plants (PHB) 
• Spell Immunity (UA) 

5th-Level Spells

• Commune with Nature (UA)
• Cure Critical Wounds (PHB) 
• Dispel Evil (PHB) 
• Flame Strike (PHB) 
• Plane Shift (PHB)
• Quest (PHB) 
• Wall of Fire (PHB) 

6th-Level Spells

• Aerial Servant (PHB) 
• Forbiddance (UA) 
• Find the Path (PHB) 
• Heal (PHB)
• Speak with Monsters (PHB) 
• Weather Summoning (PHB) 
• Word of Recall (PHB) 

7th-Level Spells

• Astral Spell (PHB) 
• Earthquake (PHB) 
• Holy Word (PHB) 
• Regenerate (PHB) 
• Reincarnation (PHB) 
• Symbol (PHB)
• Wind Walk (PHB)

I'll add more spells, I am sure. 

Behind the Scenes

This is obviously my ode to the nature-loving neo-Pagan style witch. These characters are also closer to how I used to play Druids back in the AD&D days. Less the shape-shifting guardians of nature and more the dancing in circles priests and priestesses honoring what nature provides form them.

How does it differ from the Craft of the Wise? The Craft of the Wise or Pagan Witch is a witch first and a follower of a Goddess or God second. This one is the other way around. 

How does it differ from the Witch-Priestess? They serve similar purposes and even have similar spell lists but the difference is intent. 

Both the Wicce and the Witch-Priestess walk a sacred path, but their focus, source of power, and approach to magic are notably different. Choosing between them depends on the kind of spiritual figure you wish to play.

Wicce: The Gentle Shepherd of the Old Ways

The Wicce is a cleric subclass who serves the Old Religion as its community priestess. She leads sabbats, blesses fields, heals wounds with herbs and chants, and welcomes all who seek comfort, renewal, or wisdom. Her spells are granted through alignment with the rhythms of nature, the moon, and life itself, not a single deity. The Wicce is intuitive, nurturing, and grounded in spiritual service.

• Role: Community priestess, healer, celebrant
• Serves: The wider community
• Power Source: Divine and Occult; seasonal and lunar forces
• Connection: Tied to place, people, and the turning of the Wheel
• Ideal For: Players who want a wise village witch, spiritual counselor, or mystical healer

Witch-Priestess: The Devoted Flame Within the Circle

The Witch-Priestess is an Advanced Class for witches who place their Patron or Tradition at the center of their life. She is a witch first, but one whose devotion elevates her to a position of sacred authority. The Witch-Priestess blends occult mastery with religious fervor. She may serve as oracle, cult leader, sacred warrior, or ritualist of deep mysteries. Her path is more arcane, personal, and potent, but also more demanding.

• Role: Religious leader within the witch’s Tradition
• Serves: Their Patron/Goddess/God and the Tradition
• Power Source: Occult (primarily), with divine undertones
• Connection: Bound to a specific Patron, Rite, or Mystery
• Ideal For: Players who want a high-stakes mystic, zealous devotee, or visionary prophetess

Also, the Wicce can only be non-evil in alignment. Witch-Priestess as a class have no restrictions.

Both are my attempts at a revision (both in the sense of revise and to look at again) of my AD&D 2nd Ed Witch Class. 

If I were to expand this I would grab some spells from my CNoW&W and some of my other sources. Maybe along the lines of 12 or so spells per spell level. 

As always, let me know what you think.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Hot Bro SummerPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rina Haenze & Evan Perlman

Setting: West Coast, USAProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-five page, 2.37 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then.” – Marcel DionnePlot Hook: A reality television series that is really going to work the body beautifulPlot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Himbos, two NPCs, six Mythos monsters, and a bevy of ‘Hot Young Things’.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Narcissistic horror in front of the world’s cameras (and beyond)# Body beautiful versus body dysmorphic disorder# Can the himbos be the heroes?# Dysmorphophobia# Venustraphobia# Androphobia

Cons# Some players are going to need ‘How to Himbo’ guide# Single session stress test# No house floorplans# Needs a slight edit
Conclusion# Himbo Horror! Mythos horror! Reality television! Which is worse?
# Quite possibly the biggest roleplaying challenge your players will ever face, bro!

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
It is true to say that titles such as De Vermis Mysteriis, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and of course, The Necronomicon lurk in the darkest corners of our collective gaming consciousness—and even beyond that, promising knowledge and power of the most profound and revelatory nature. Each exposes truths as to the nature of the cosmos and humanity’s place within that cosmos and the power to manipulate the cosmos, as well as the secrets of those who seek such power, who despite the revelations of humanity’s insignificance in cosmos still want to lord it over them, and who want to manipulate the universe in ways that no sane man would. Yet they also offer salvation if the reader is prepared to pay the price to his equilibrium and overcome the difficulty of finding and gaining access to works of such a dreadful and blasphemous nature that they have in the past, been banned, burned, locked away, or simply hidden. Let alone the fact that such a book might require the reader to know Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic, or an obscure or lost language in order to read it. For as much as they offer truths that can set a man on the road to arcane and awful power, they may offer another man the means to thwart those who would tread such a path. Drawn from the imaginations of authors including H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Ramsy Campbell, they have appeared in fiction numerous times and in gaming likely as many times, if not more. The influence of Call of Cthulhu in spreading the names of such Mythos tomes cannot be underestimated and perhaps the best sourcebook for describing what they are, what their significance is, and what they contain, remains The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1.

From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes presents another sixty-five new titles that lie in wait, ready to illuminate, inform, and inculcate the overly curious and the immoderately ambitious. Most entries in the supplement are a page long each and most are illustrated, often to chilling effect such as the Prophecies of Cizin, written in Myan glyphs incised on human skin whilst the owner was still alive and later flensed, the illustration showing that skin hanging up.
Every tome is given a title and details of the language it was written in, who wrote it, and when. This is followed by a detailed description and the roleplaying game stats. They include the ‘Sanity Loss’ incurred for reading the book and the possible amount of ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ skill gained in the process, both the amount gained from an initial reading and later prolonged study. The ‘Cthulhu Mythos Rating’ represents the percentage chance of a reader finding a specific reference in a Mythos tome, whilst ‘Study’ is the actual needed to read the tome from start to finish. ‘Suggested Spells’ gives the spells that might be found in a Mythos tome, for which the Keeper will need access to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook. In addition, The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic will also be useful. Some entries have their own spells, new to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Lastly, each entry is categorised according to its ‘Rarity’ from ‘Common’—available in most book shops or libraries, to ‘Unique’—there only being one known copy.
The supplement is organised by era. These are Prehistoric (before 3000 BCE), Ancient (3000 BCE–499 CE), Medieval (500–1499), Early Modern (1500–1799), Late Modern (1800–1945), and Contemporary (1946 to present). The collection opens with Echoes of Eternity, the billions of years old pattern within the radiation left over from the Big Bang that might truly be understood only by reading the notes made by the Mi-Go and if thoroughly read might end in the instant death of the reader and ends with the Unknown Data Crystal found in the Polaris system in the twenty-third century that if meditated upon, will give answers to astronomical or navigational questions. In between, The Writing on the Wall can be found on great blocks of marble in the Australian desert, written in languages from far away, but encoded within is a hidden message that if read, will swap the reader’s mind of the Yithian scientist who wrote and allow him to escape his species’ doom; the Incolae Profundorum, a book found in the wake of the Venice floods of 1966 and which to this day remains damp and smelling of mould and salt and which describes the great benefits of aquatic civilisations; and the Isi Aldranna, the Norse runes carved into the hull of a Viking longship found quite well preserved found in an ice cave that tell the story of its great voyages, the inference being that they took the crew far beyond given that one of the spells it imparts is Brew Space Mead! There are versions of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Edmund Spenser’s Excursions into Faerie, and even The Book of Uncommon Prayer, whilst Le Culinaire Macabre is a book of macabre recipes written by the notorious ‘Cannibal Chef of Lyon’ that if cooked and eaten provide surprising benefits. Zimmer’s Marchen is a coda to Grimm’s Fairy tales, providing very much darker interpretations of the German folktales; Quaint and Curious Tales of Bodmin Moor collects Cornish tales of witches and the Devil and causes the reader to dream after reading a story of being visited by a witch, different each time, who offers the dreamer a new spell; and Brearley's Railway Time Tables and Assistant to Railway Travelling for September 1892 is so comprehensive a collection of railway timetables and local travel details that includes routes and stations that do not yet exist and includes the spell Ghost Train! Jahrila Phool—or Flowers of Death—is a cheap pulp novel in Hindi that imposes its plot upon the reader’s life; Hawker Brothers Ltd.’s Super Fun Party Time Activity Book is a children’s puzzle book with bizarre geometric join-the-dots puzzles (example included) and Oперация Mышеловка—or Operation Mousetrap—is set of microfilm canisters containing kompromat material on a large number of foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and world leaders performing unspeakable rites from just up until Glasnost and subsequently lost in the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the weirdest is Nettleton’s Gourmet Alphabet Soup, a cheap, but popular brand of alphabet pasta shapes in tomato sauce that when heated forms messages of either forbidden knowledge or tips for cooking the perfect soup! The most delightful entry is An Ultharian Treasury: Prose and Poesy of Catkind, a collection of songs, stories, and poems from the literary and folk traditions of the Cats of Ulthar from The Dreamlands, all telling of their triumphs over the vile entities of the Mythos and meant to impart lessons of morality or practicality to young kittens. Of course, such tales are best appreciated when performed orally and in the language of Cat!
Threaded through the supplement, effectively serving as chapter or era breaks, is Ex Libris. This is a classic cautionary story of the dangers of taking too much of an interest in strange books. The conceit is that it takes place at the same theatre where the Miskatonic Playhouse—actually a podcast that performs content from the Miskatonic Repository—performs its plays. In addition, the first of two appendices summarises all of the Mythos tomes in the book, whilst the second provides a set of tables to ‘Build Your Own Tome’.
The second appendix does highlight the issue with From the Library of the Playhouse. One of the tables allows a Keeper to roll for the affiliation of the Mythos tome. However, there is no such affiliation listed for actual entries in the supplement, which would have made them easier to use. Physically, From the Library of the Playhouse is well presented and laid out, though it does need an edit in places.
From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes is an engaging showcase of invention and creativity. Its entries are as much additions to the Mythos as new iterations of it and its influence, but above all, it is a collection of potential hooks that might spur further creativity on the Miskatonic Repository. There in lies a challenge. How many of its entries will form the basis of new scenarios?

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Calamity in Drywater Canyon: A Wild Wet Call of Cthulhu ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Raul Longoria

Setting: Texas-New Mexico border, 1870sProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 27.28 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Butchery in the Badlands will lead to blood!Plot Hook: Opportunities aplenty, but frontier fears face the unwaryPlot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, two handouts, two maps, and four Mythos monsters, and a horse.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Invasion of the cannibal zombies in the Wild West!# Open rather than plotted investigation# Can be run using Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West# Combat focus suggests that Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos could be an alternative rules set# Osophobia# Speluncaphobia# Kinemortophobia

Cons# Open investigation will careful handling by Keeper# No backstory for the Investigators

Conclusion# Hell comes to take a bite out of Drywater# Rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ brawlin’ showdown against the forces of evil!

 Another Halloween for the history books.

I didn't do as much this year, and I took an easier path with my "No Theme" October Horror Movie Challenge, but I still had a great time.

For my October Horror Movie Challenge, I watched 38 movies, with 26 of them as first-time views.  I adjusted this total when one of the movies I thought was a FTV was really a repeat.

I watched all of the Conjuring movies and that was a lot of fun, but the best movie of the Challenge was The Substance with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

You can see the movies I watched on my Pinterest board. Next year, I should hit over 600 movies for the Challenge. The Pinterest board is nice, just scrolling and looking at all the movie posters is fun.

One year I need to stick to the central theme of this blog and do nothing but Witchcraft movies. The biggest issue with that is, can I find 25 witch horror movies I have not seen already?  I'll have to up the number of movies I watch per day, I think. 

Something to mull over these next few months. 

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Where Dreams Take Root: A 1930s Call of Cthulhu ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matt ‘Doc’ Tracey & Keeper Doc

Setting: 1930s Miskatonic UniversityProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 91.36 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Little Shop of HorrorsPlot Hook: An ‘unofficial academic assignment’ turns into a nightmarePlot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, seven NPCs, ten handouts, five maps, two Mythos tomes, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Excellent

Pros# Sweaty sense of unreality amidst academic ambition
# Excellent addition to any Miskatonic University-based campaign# The Dreamlands as a threat, not a destination# Almost psychedelic thirty years early # Can be run as part of A Time to Harvest: Death and Discovery in the Vermont Hills – A 1930s Era Campaign Across New England and Beyond# Oneirophobia# Anthonophobia# Botanophobia

Cons# Needs a slight edit# No bungalow map
Conclusion# Paranoid puzzler turns into hothouse horror
# Unreal treatment of the ‘plant as invasive force’ theme
# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: The Forbidden BeatPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Robert J Grieves

Setting: The Second Summer of Love, LondonProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 8.75 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A conspiracy of sound of Olympic proportionsPlot Hook: “Off with your headDance ’til you’re deadHeads will rollHeads will rollHeads will rollOn the floor”– Heads will roll, Yeah Yeah Yeah’sPlot Support: Staging advice, ten NPCs, three maps, one ‘Mythos’ monster, and a playlist.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Hedonistic horror on the London rave scene# Lowlife on the edge of national gentrification# Opportunity to create some interesting Investigators# Melophobia# Pharmacophobia# Chapodiphobia

Cons# Needs an edit# DJ Eric Z gives it all away
# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Scuzzy Saturday Night Squatter’s Rites # ‘All your base are belong to Azathoth’

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is set in New York City and its surrounds in the summer of 1923. It opens in classic fashion a missing persons case, Mary Cobbler being concerned about the disappearance of her younger brother, John. She will alert the Investigators by telegram and then in person, they will learn that of later John has been sleeping poorly, spending time at the local library conducting research of some kind, and had received a letter that he avoided talking about. He has been gone a few days after leaving to conduct his sister thought was more research at libraries in New York. A simple search of his room turns up multiple clues as to his paranoid state of mind, a preoccupation, and some correspondence with a Doctor Edward Huntingdon who like the Cobblers, lives in New York suburb of Greenwich. Unfortunately, by the time the Investigators get to Doctor Huntingdon’s house, he is lying dead in a congealing pool of his own blood, on the floor of his office, his face and the front of his skull missing, as large, black maggots writhe in what remains of his brain!
It is a striking opening scene to the scenario—the earlier interview with Mary is more like an extended cold open—which sets the tone for the rest of the scenario. It is clear that there is something strange, not to say ghastly, going on and it is equally clear that John is somehow mixed up in it. This is confirmed when men come to the house shared by John and his sister and break into search it in the middle of the night. Ideally, the Investigators will be staying there, the default being they are actually based in Arkham, several hours’ travel away in New England, so that the Keeper can run a creepy cat and mouse encounter in the dark of the Cobbler residence. Further investigation upon the part of the Investigators will lead to a farm on the outskirts of Greenwich and into New York itself. There are other nasty encounters too, again with the strange men who broke into the Cobbler house, at a church and then later in a New York warehouse before the plot leads into scenario’s final revelation and climax in an unexpected location, some ‘distance’ from the city. A handful of endings to the scenario are given, at least one of them having a very nasty sting in tale.
So what is going on in The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors? The scenario revolves around an attempt by a group of occultists and members of an extended family, led by a wealthy industrialist, to lift a curse that has plagued the family for centuries. They are not the villains of the piece though. The villains are the cultists who originally placed the curse and the cultists that now want to keep it in place. There is a pleasing bait and switch here. The occultists and family members and their plans that John Cobbler has got himself wrapped up look like traditional Call of Cthulhu cultists at first, whereas they are merely well intentioned, and of course, misguided, since they are, after all, dealing with the Mythos. The actual cultists, the ones which want to prevent the industrialist and his cohorts from lifting the curse, are the evil, monstrous ones here. Effectively, this is not just a case of a bait and switch between occultists and cultists, but also what looks like cult on cult action. All of which is going to look mighty mysterious and downright confusing to the players—especially if they are veteran players of Call of Cthulhu—let alone their Investigators.

More than half of The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is dedicated to supporting the Keeper. The Mythos monsters are surprisingly detailed, and the scenario includes thirty maps and handouts. The scenario also comes with six pre-generated Investigators including a biology professor at Miskatonic University, a private investigator, a journalist and author who writes about the occult, a boxing coach, a historian, and a vaudeville performer. All six come with detailed backstories, but how they are connected to each other, let alone John Cobbler, to come together to investigate his disappearance is a mystery in itself and really, the scenario’s biggest weakness.

Physically, The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is very nicely presented with decent artwork and excellent maps and handouts. In fact, there are some thirty maps and handouts, and they are really very good. However, it does need an edit in places. It is decently organised, and each scene ends with the clues and links to other scenes and locations.
The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is a richly detailed, clue dense scenario that takes a classic Call of Cthulhu situation and switches things around to rightfully confusing effect. This is a surprisingly cunning, but well put together scenario.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Pulp Cthulhu: Heroes’ New Talents!Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Davide Quatrini

Setting: 1930sProduct: Supplement for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos
What You Get: Three page, 2.70 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When some Talents are not enough, then you need more!Plot Hook: More Pulp Action Talents for Pulp Action heroes.Plot Support: Twenty-four Talents for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos Production Values: Plain
Pros# Twenty-four Pulp Cthulhu Talents
# Broken down into four categories—Alternate Physical Talents, Alternate Mental Talents, Alternate Combat Talents, and Alternate Miscellaneous Talents# Some very specific, so suit specific character types, such ‘Miner’ who always knows depth underground and time of day outside, good for a miner or a spelunker
Cons# Needs an edit# Some very specific, so not always useful such as ‘Chopper’ which reduces fumble chances when using a chainsaw as a weapon or ‘True Singer’ which lets a character counter any music- or song-based spell or eldritch power with a Hard Art and Craft (Opera Singer) roll
Conclusion# If you absolutely have to have more Pulp Cthulhu Talents# Cheap

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Shadow & IllusionPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John Almack

Setting: Jazz Age ChicagoProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-four page, 2.70 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Some dummies are no fools Plot Hook: What’s the trick when a magician dies performing a magic trick?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, seventeen NPCs, two handouts, one map, and one ‘Mythos’ monster.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Magic murder mystery?
# Easy to adjust to other settings or time periods# Magic and the Mob don’t mix# Detailed staging for some scenes# Option for running as a more mundane scenario# Chance for some Investigators to shine on stage# Rhabdophobia# Automatonophobia# Stagefright

Cons# No Mythos# No real introduction for the Investigators
# A lot of NPCs to keep track of# Underwritten Investigators# Needed more creepy venting

Conclusion# The perils of performing in a tale of murder and magic# Tonight’s performance is not going to go off like clockwork, it going to go like hackwork!

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: For King and CountryPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: The Dreamlands, 2025Product: Scenario for H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands – Beyond the Wall of Sleep
What You Get: Twenty page, 1.49 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When your dreams of roleplaying turn against youPlot Hook: Rescue the princess, save the Game Master!Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Adventurers, five NPCs, one map, and one monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Winner of the Stars Are Right Scenario Outline Writing Contest# Involves trauma as a roleplaying mechanism# Straightforward, classic fantasy set-up# Oneirophobia# Rhabdophobia# Pantophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# The Game Master as deus ex machina# Involves trauma as a roleplaying mechanism# Investigators do not have the ‘basics’ of fantasy skills for The Dreamlands# Should the climber have the climb skill?
Conclusion# Deus ex machina versus deus ex machina# Interesting concept with underwritten player agency

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is a duology—a ‘double feature’—of scenarios within the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults which had their heyday in the seventies. It is a sequel to The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3, and like that anthology presents short scenarios that can be played in a single session. However, unlike the scenarios in the anthology, the two presented in The Grindhouse: Volume 4 are not locked room situations. Nevertheless, they are still action and horror focused and involving bloody and brutal horror. Each scenario is presented in full colour, comes with its own set of pre-generated Investigators, and follows the same format. This consists of ‘Prelude’, ‘Objectives’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Cast’, ‘Signs’, ‘Threats’, and ‘Changes’. The ‘Prelude’ sets up and explains the scenario, the ‘Objectives’ the Player Characters’ involvement, ‘Secrets’ reveals what is really going on, ‘Cast’ lists minor NPCs, ‘Signs’ details clues which can be found, ‘Threats’ the dangers both Mythos and mundane, and ‘Changes’ the major events which occur during the scenario.

The first of the two scenarios in The Grindhouse: Volume 4 open with ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’. As the title suggests, this is definitely a scenario that is far from the traditional Jazz Age, tweeds and pipes-style of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. As is made clear on the duology’s back cover, this is not, “…[Y]our typical Call of Cthulhu scenarios where some classy, well-dressed investigator sips tea and pours over leather books in some wood panelled library.” Instead, this is a muscular, bruising brawl of a scenario that ends in a knockdown bar fight and a showdown to prevent a summoning in dusty New Mexico, not all that far from Roswell. It takes place in the sleepy town of Dexter, where the Player Characters, the members of a biker gang called ‘The Devil’s Pistons’ ride into town in search of a book. They have been commissioned to intimidate or persuade a local dealer in antiquities and rare books to sell an eighth century Sumerian manuscript called The Eshnunna Rubbings. It appears to be a simple job, well within The Devil’s Pistons’ capabilities and they have been promised a solid pay-out.
Unfortunately, things begin to look bad for the Player Characters when ‘The Reichers’—a rival gang whose members’ bikes, clothes, and bodies are emblazoned in neo-Nazi symbols—rides into town. By the time the Player Characters get to the bookseller, it is clear that he does not have the book, but with some due diligence, they can learn that it is in the possession of a local bar owner, a friend of the bookseller. Fortunately, the Tread Mark bar is the kind of rough establishment where the Player Characters like to hang out. Unfortunately, so do ‘The Reichers’ and add in a Jewish occultist hell bent on revenge and what you get is knockdown, stand-up barroom brawl that Robert Rodriguez would be proud to stage.
In some ways, this is a nasty scenario, a dirty mix of Nazis, Nazi ideology expressed by the NPCs, occultism, and a criminal biker gang—and it is the members of that criminal biker gang that the players roleplay. To be fair, the scenario clearly advises that it is not for everyone and plus, the bikers of ‘The Devil’s Pistons’ are not evil themselves, just happy riding alongside and over the edge of the law and none of them are without a conscience. Further, the scenario is fun and the Player Characters get to punch Nazis—a lot! This is a very physical scenario, involving far more combat than most scenarios for Call of Cthulhu. Given that, a few tweaks to adjust to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos might be worth considering and the big barroom brawl would also work with miniatures and a map given its focus on combat. Lastly, and as an aside, the scenario does miss a trick by not being set in the town of Castronegro from the scenario, ‘The Secret of Castronegro’, found in the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore.
‘Cold as Hell’, the second scenario shifts to the New England of Lovecraft Country and the long-blighted town of Dunwich in the heart of winter. It takes place in The Wayward Inn, a historic building in the heart of the town, where contractors employed to carry out some necessary renovations have made an important and of course, dangerous, discovery in the building’s cellars. The Player Characters are “private couriers of unusual items” hired to collect the item that was discovered during the initial work and deliver it to the archaeology department at Miskatonic University. Since they work across New England, they are pretty much used to transporting the weirdest of items, no questions asked. There is a fair bit of backstory and set-up before it is revealed what is going on.
Very quickly, the Player Characters and the patrons of The Wayward Inn find themselves under siege by members of the Dunwich community dressed with no regard for the frigid temperatures and hellbent obtaining the item that the Player Characters have come to collect and committing as much bloody mayhem and inflicting as much suffering as they can in the process. There is a handful scenes to set the situation up and highlight the cruelty of the threat that the Player Characters face, but after that, the Keeper is feel to proceed however she wants the monstrous Dunwichers to act.
‘Cold as Hell’ is a trapped room, survival horror scenario, though there is nothing to stop the Player Characters from making a run for it in their Chevy Impala. There are some secrets to be found in, or rather below, the inn, but they will not really help the Player Characters. The scenario is ably detailed and combines elements of John Carpenter’s The Thing from Another World with a classic zombie film, but it never rises above being okay for what it does. There is familiarity to it, to its set-up, and to its pacing. There is nothing to stop the players embracing that familiarity and playing along with it, but unlike ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’, none of those players are going to come away from playing ‘Cold as Hell’ shouting, “Hell, yeah!”.
In addition, ‘Cold as Hell’ gives the Keeper a lot of NPCs to maintain a track of and whilst there four pre-generated Player Characters for the scenario, four feels like too many for their backstory and occupation.
The duology comes to a close with rules for vehicle chases—since either scenario could involve a vehicle chase of some kind—and ‘News and Culture: 1973-74’, a quick guide to what the background period was like and what was happening, particularly in the USA. Both are useful in their way.
Physically, The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is decently presented. It is well written, and it decently illustrated throughout. In fact, some of the artwork is very good. The cartography is also good throughout. of the two, ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’ is the easier to prepare.
The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is a duology of two halves. One is a little too icy and lacks that certain spark on the page. The other is a grab ’em by the cojones, stone-cold dust-up in the sands of New Mexico that will have the players cheering on the action and their bikers pounding on the Nazis in a thriller of a showdown.  

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Kofun Closes to the West: An island Hopping Scenario in Edo Japan for the Call of Role Playing GamePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Steven Goodison

Setting: Edo period JapanProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-two page, 57.22 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Grave robbers of the OrientPlot Hook: Against the clock, body snatching mysteryPlot Support: Staging advice, ten handouts, four maps, twelve NPCs, one spell, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Underwhelming
Scenario Title: Overwhelming
Pros# Set in Edo era Japan# Second part of a five-part mini-campaign
# Interesting clash between ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’# Sequel to Thing Torments Poet, Daimyo calls on Greatest Help, Will the Players Fail?# Could be adapted for use with Japan – Empire of Shadows: A Call of Cthulhu sourcebook for 1920s Imperial Japan# Necrophobia# Phasmophobia# Osophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Plot could be much clearer# No suggestions as to how to create the Investigators
Conclusion# Interesting period for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying is left unsupported# Decent mystery hindered by messy layout

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Split TicketPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Steven Goodison

Setting: Wales, 2025Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-two page, 46.95 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Trên Cannibal i GymruPlot Hook: It’s in the blood!Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, six handouts, and three Mythos monsters.Production Values: Cartoonish
Pros# Easy to run with any type of character# Straightforward one-shot# Cannibal Combat in Spaaaaace!# Kinemortophobia# Siderodromophobia# Ososphobia
Cons# Needs an edit# No maps
Conclusion# Expect three weird shifts in tone in an otherwise straightforward one-shot# Anyone from anywhere, survival horror in the last place you would expect